During upstream production of natural gas, the gas brought to the surface is compressed so that it can be injected into a pipeline and transported elsewhere. Various types of natural gas compressors may be used for this purpose.
Sometimes the gas brought to the surface is a mixture having a small amount of liquid hydrocarbons, typically up to 5% volume fraction. This gas-liquid mixture is sometimes referred to as “wet gas”. Because a natural gas compressor is designed for dry gas only, the presence of the liquid degrades the performance of the compressor to require much more power. By requiring more power, large drivers are needed that increase the cost and footprint of the compressor system.
A conventional solution to the wet gas problem is to avoid the mixed phase flow by separating the gas and liquid at the well-head. However, the separation equipment required to do this increases both the cost and footprint of the compression system.